[Reprinted from PERCEPTION: AN APPROACH TO PERSONALITY, edited by Robert
R. Blake and Glenn V. Ramsey. Copyright 1951, The Ronald Press Company, New York.]

It is my particular privilege, as I am not a specialist in the field of
psycho-logics,2 to participate in this
symposium dealing with such a vital subject. The topic and main divisions of
this Chapter were suggested to me by the organizers of the symposium, and I am
glad to abide by them.

In my work I have found that there are some simple principles underlying the
subject matter which I will attempt to convey here. More details may be found
in the bibliography given, and the large amounts of other related literature
available.

Not dealing with the problem of "perception" directly in my work, I
shall use this term here in the vernacular sense. I do not consider myself
qualified to define it, and so shall use quotation marks to indicate my
nontechnical treatment of this type of human reactions. I cannot avoid dealing
with the problems of "perception" indirectly but will do so from a
different angle.

The Effect on Perceptual Processes of the Language System

Perhaps a story from the European underground under Hitler would be a good
illustration. In a railroad compartment an American grandmother with her young
and attractive granddaughter, a Romanian officer, and a Nazi officer were the
only occupants. The train was passing through a dark tunnel, and all that was
heard was a loud kiss and a vigorous slap. After the train emerged from the tunnel,
nobody spoke, but the grandmother was saying to herself, "What a fine girl
I have raised. She will take care of herself. I am proud of her." The
granddaughter was saying to herself, "Well, grandmother is old enough not
to mind a little kiss. Besides, the fellows are nice. I am surprised what a
hard wallop grandmother has." The Nazi officer was meditating, "How
clever those Romanians are! They steal a kiss and have the other fellow
slapped." The Romanian officer was chuckling to himself, "How smart I
am! I kissed my own hand and slapped the Nazi."

Obviously it was a problem of limited "perception," where mainly
"hearing" was involved, with different interpretations.

Another example of "perception" could be given which anyone can try
for himself. In fact, I suggest that this simple demonstration should be
repeated by all readers of this paper. The demonstration takes two persons.
One, without the knowledge of the other, cuts out large headlines of the same
size from different issues of a newspaper. The subject remains seated in the
same position throughout. He is shown one of the headlines at a certain
distance. If he is able to read it, it is discarded. Then he is shown
another, different, headline at a somewhat farther distance away. Again, if he
is able to read it, it is discarded. This process is repeated until the
subject is unable to read the headline. Then the demonstrator tells him what
is in the headline. The amazing fact is that the subject will then be able to
see and read the headline the moment he "knows" what is
there.

Such illustrations could be multiplied indefinitely. These examples are
enough to illustrate the impossibility of separating sharply the
"perceptual," "seeing," "hearing," etc., and
"knowing," a division which cannot be made, except superficially on
verbal levels.

In a non-Aristotelian orientation we take for granted that all
"perceptual processes" involve abstracting by our nervous system at
different levels of complexity. Neurological evidence shows the selective
character of the organisms responses to total situations, and the papers
in this symposium also corroborate the view that the mechanisms of
"perception" lie in the ability of our nervous system to abstract and
to project.

Abstracting by necessity involves evaluating, whether conscious or not, and so
the process of abstracting may be considered as a process of evaluating
stimuli, whether it be a "toothache," "an attack of
migraine," or the reading of a "philosophical treatise." A great
many factors enter into "perceiving," as suggested by the content
of this symposium. As this seems to be a circular process, it is considered
here on lower and higher levels of complexity.

Processes of Abstracting.Our knowledge today indicates
that all life is electro-colloidal in character, the functioning of the nervous
system included. We do not as yet know the intrinsic mechanisms, but from an
electro-colloidal point of view every part of the brain is connected with every
other part and with our nervous system as a whole. With such a foundation, even
though it becomes necessary to investigate, different aspects of the processes
of abstracting for purposes of analysis, we should be aware that these
different aspects are parts of one whole continuous process of normal human
life.

Let us consider what our nervous system does when we "perceive" a
happening or event. The term "event" is used here in the sense of
Whitehead as an instantaneous cross-section of a process. Say we drop a box of
matches. Here we have a first-order happening, which occurs on nonverbal
or what are called the "silent" or "unspeakable"
levels. The reflected light impinges on the eye, we get some sort of
electro-colloidal configurations in the brain; then, since we are sentient
organisms, we can react to those configurations with some sort of
"feelings," some evaluations, etc., about them, on "silent"
levels. Finally, on the verbal levels, we can speak about those organismal
reactions. Newton may have said, about the falling matchbox,
gravitation"; Einstein may say "space-time curvature."
Whatever we may say about it, the first-order happening remains on the
silent levels. How we will talk about it may differ from day to day, or from
year to year, or century to century. All our "feelings,"
"thinkings," our "loves," "hates," etc.,
happen on silent un-speakable levels, but may be affected by the verbal
levels by a continuing interplay. We may verbalize about them, to ourselves or
others, intensify, decrease them, etc., but this is a different problem.

In the following diagram (Figure 1) is given an extensional analysis of the
process of abstracting from an electro-colloidal non-Aristotelian point of
view. It is oversimplified and could be made more exhaustive. However, it is
satisfactory for our purpose of explaining briefly the most general and
important points.

Most of us identify in value levels I, II, III, and IV and react as
if our verbalizations about the first three levels were "it". Whatever we may say something "is" obviously
is not the "something" on the silent levels. Indeed, as
Wittgenstein wrote, "What can be shown, cannot be
said." In my experience I found that it is practically impossible to
convey the differentiation of silent (unspeakable) levels from verbal levels
without having the hearer or reader pinch with one hand the finger of the other hand. He would then
realize organismally that the first-order psycho-logical direct experiences are
not verbal. The simplicity of this statement is misleading unless we become
aware of its implications, as in our living reactions most of us identify in
value the entirely different levels, with often disastrous
consequences.

Unfortunately, people in general, including many scientists, disregard
levels II and III completely, and react as if unconscious that IV "is
not" I. In other words, we do not take into account the mechanisms of the
human nervous system or "think electro-colloidally" about our
reactions. Such a disregard leads to misunderstandings, heated two-valued
("either-or") debates, hostilities, prejudices, bitterness, etc. In
the history of "philosophy," for example, the metaphysical fight
about "solipsism" simply ceases to be a problem when we become
conscious that the only possible link between the inherently different silent
(nonverbal) and verbal levels is found in their similarity of structure,
expressed in terms of relations, on which the present non-Aristotelian system
is based.

An awareness of the processes of abstracting clarifies the structure of
a great many of our interpersonal, professional, etc., difficulties, which may
become trivial or nonexistent if we become conscious of the identifications
involved. Self-made problems often turn out to be no problems.

Statements are verbal; they are never the silent "it." One may have
a nightmare that he "is" a Stalin. That may be innocent enough. One
may have daydreams of being a Stalin. That is more serious.
One may proclaim consciously, "I am Stalin," and believe in it,
and begin to shoot people who disagree with him; usually such a person is
locked up in a hospital, and he usually is a hopeless case.

We see how the above diagram indicates human semantic (evaluational)
mechanisms in the average individual who is hovering between sanity and
semantic illness. It is well known that what would be only a dream to a
"normal" person, "is reality" to a dementia praecox
patient, who lives and acts accordingly.

These mechanisms also function pathologically in infantile adults, who live in
a fictitious world built up on identifications.

The verbal levels, in the meantime, are of unique human importance because we
can abstract on higher and higher verbal levels from I, II, III, etc. In human
life, IV represents means for intercommunicating and transmitting from
individual to individual and generation to generation the accumulated
experiences of individuals and the race. I call this human capacity the
"time-binding" characteristic.

The symbolic levels of behavior differentiate most sharply human
reactions from signal reactions of lower, less complex forms of life. If those
accumulated experiences are not properly verbalized, it may seriously twist or
even arrest human development.

This simple diagram represents most complex processes, involving
"perception" on different levels, problems of interpretation, verbal
formalism, etc. Every type of human reactions from the lowest to the highest
levels involves these mechanisms, the nonawareness of which may lead to
disturbing, frustrating, or disastrous mis-evaluations and consequences. We
will find later how this diagram applies to primitive and Aristotelian language
structures.

I have stressed the serious or tragic aspect of our processes of abstracting
here because I am attempting to convey the heavy life-value of what may
otherwise appear too simple and obvious.

Verbal and Nonverbal "Thinking."it will be noticed that
I have put quotation marks around the word "thinking." This term
usually implies a more "cortical" activity, indicating verbally some
sort of a split between the functioning of the cortical and thalamic regions
of our nervous system where there is actually no such split, but an
interaction and integration on different levels.

"Is all thinking verbal?" Some say "yes," some say
"no." If, however, we limit ourselves to verbal "thinking,"
we are caught in our old linguistic ruts of bygone generations,
socio-culturally trained and neurologically canalized in the inherited forms of
representation. Under such conditions we are unable or unfit to see the outside
or inside world anew, and so we handicap scientific and other creative work. We
speak so glibly about "freedom," never considering Willard
Gibbs degrees of freedom on which all our advance depends. A
non-Aristotelian system involves that new orientation which ultimately leads to
creative "thinking." Thus, an automobile has indefinitely more
degrees of freedom than a street-car, which is "canalized" in its
rails. Unfortunately and perhaps tragically, the majority of us
"think" verbally, so characteristic of the Aristotelian
subject-predicate orientation, and thus are handicapped in or prevented from
creative "thinking." The physico-mathematical and so scientific way
of "thinking" broke through those handicaps and thus is at the
foundation of creative scientific work, which brings to mankind so many
benefits.

There is a tremendous difference between "thinking" in verbal terms,
and "contemplating," inwardly silent, on nonverbal levels, and then
searching for the proper structure of language to fit the supposedly discovered
structure of the silent processes that modern science tries to find. If we
"think" verbally, we act as biased observers and project onto
the silent levels the structure of the language we use, so remaining in our rut
of old orientations which make keen, unbiased observations
("perceptions"?) and creative work well-nigh impossible. In
contrast, when we "think" without words, or in pictures or
visualizations (which involve structure and, therefore, relations), we may
discover new aspects and relations on silent levels, and so may formulate
important theoretical results in the general search for a similarity of
structure between the two levels, silent and verbal. Practically all important
advances are made in that way.

Jacques Hadamard, the great mathematician, has made a study of how some
outstanding mathematicians and scientists "think." I refer to his
valuable little book on The Psychology of Invention in theMathematical Field (11). The majority of these creative men reported
that they "think" in terms of visual structures. "Most generally
images are used, very often of a geometrical nature," he found ( 11, p. 1
14). I may mention here one of the questions which Hadamard asked in his
questionnaire, to which Einstein gave an answer of particular interest to us
here:

Question: It would be very helpful for the purpose of psychological
investigation to know what internal or mental images, what kind of
"internal word" mathematicians make use of; whether they are motor
[kinesthetic], auditory, visual or mixed, depending on the subject which they
are studying (11, p. 140).

Answer: The above mentioned elements are, in my case, of visual and
some of muscular type. Conventional words or other signs have to be sought for
laboriously only in a secondary stage, when the mentioned associative play is
sufficiently established and can be reproduced at will.... In a stage when
words intervene at all, they are, in my case, purely auditive, but they
interfere only in a secondary stage as already mentioned (11, p. 143).3

Personally, I "think" in terms of pictures, and how I speak
about those visualizations later is a different problem. I also notice a
severe strain on my eyes when doing creative work, due to that visualizing,
which seems to be related somehow to "perception."

In this connection I may refer also to a most important essay on
"Mathematical Creation" by the great mathematician, Henri
Poincaré (34), which was delivered in the first years of this century as
a lecture before the Psychological Society in Paris.

Language becomes then a medium through which we eventually talk to ourselves
or to others, with its own definite limitations. "The relation between
language and experience is often misunderstood," Sapir found (40).
"Language is not merely a more or less systematic inventory of the various
items of experience which seem relevant to the individual, as is so often
naively assumed, but is also a self-contained, creative symbolic organization,
which not only refers to experience largely acquired without its help, but
actually defines experience for us by reason of its formal
completeness and because of our unconscious projection of its implicit
expectations into the field of experience" (italics mine).

As Santayana said, "The empiricist ... thinks he believes only what he
sees, but he is much better at believing than at seeing" (21, P. 1).4

In An Essay on Man, Ernst Cassirer (7) discusses the "hunger for names"
which every normal child shows at a certain age.

By learning to name things a child does not simply add a list of artificial
signs to his previous knowledge of ready-made empirical objects. He learns
rather to form the concepts of those objects, to come to terms with the
objective world. Henceforth the child stands on firmer ground. His vague,
uncertain, fluctuating perceptions and his dim feelings begin to assume a new
shape. They may be said to crystallize around the name as a fixed center, a
focus of thought.

But herein lies an important aspect of "naming" or "labeling":

The very act of denomination depends on a process of classification ...
they [the classifications] are based on certain constant and recurring
elements in our sense experience.... There is no rigid and pre-established scheme
according to which our divisions and subdivisions might once for all be made.
Even in languages closely akin and agreeing in their general structure we do
not find identical names. As Humboldt pointed out, the Greek and Latin terms
for the moon, although they refer to the same object, do not express the same
intention or concept. The Greek term (mën) denotes the function of
the moon to "measure" time; the Latin term (luna,
luc-na) denotes the moons lucidity or brightness.... The
function of a name is always limited to emphasizing a particular aspect of a
thing, and it is precisely this restriction and limitation upon which the value
of the name depends.... in the act of denomination we select, out of the
multiplicity and diffusion in our sense data, certain fixed centers of
perception (7).5

A "name" (label) involves for a given individual a whole
constellation or configuration of labeling, defining, evaluating, etc., unique
for each individual, according to his socio-cultural, linguistic environment
and his heredity, connected with his wishes, interests, needs, etc.

Cassirer makes some interesting comparisons between a child learning its first
language and an adult learning a foreign language. I may add here that it
happens that I was born into four languages (three different roots), and this
has helped me not to be bound by words as I might have been if I had learned
only one language as a child.

We see the seriousness of terminology, which is affected by andalsodetermines our general Weltanschauung. In 1950 we
must visualize the world in general as a submicroscopic, dynamic electronic
process and life in particular as an electro-colloidal process of still much
higher complexity (1, 2). What has made it possible for us to visualize an
"object" and life in this way? Theories, verbalizations, built up for
thousands of years, up to the latest discoveries of modern science. Thus, we
find again that ceaseless circularity. The fact that we can
"perceive" happenings, objects, or persons in this way has very
important bearings on that whole process, as we will find later in our
discussion.

Primitive Language Structures.All languages have a structure of some
kind, and every language reflects in its own structure that of the world as
assumed by those who evolved the language.6
Reciprocally, we read mostly unconsciously into the world the structure of the
language we use. Because we take the structure of our own habitual language so
much for granted, particularly if we were born into it, it is sometimes difficult to
realize how differently people with other language structures view the world.

The structure of anything, whether it be a language, house, machine,
etc., must be in terms of relations. To have "structure" we
must have a complex or network of ordered and interrelated parts. The only
possible link between the nonverbal and verbal levels is found in terms of
relations; and, therefore, relations as factors of structure give the sole
content of all human knowledge. Thus, we may realize the importance of the
structure of a language, any language. Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein
were the important pioneers in devoting serious attention to the problem of
structure (38, 39, 51). I cannot go into this problem in more detail here,
except to try to convey its fundamental importance.

Among primitive peoples with one-valued "pre-logical thinking" the
"consciousness of abstracting" is practically nil. The effect upon an
individual produced by something inside his skin is projected outside his skin,
often acquiring a demonic character. The "idea" of an action or
object is identified with the action or the object itself.

The "paralogical" state is a little more advanced. Here the
identifications are based on similarities, and differences are neglected
(not consciously, of course). Lévy-Bruhl describes this primitive
evaluational level by formulating the "law of participation," by
which all things which have similar characteristics "are the
same" (29; 21, p. 514). A primitive "syllogism" runs
somewhat as follows: "Certain Indians run fast, stags run fast; therefore,
some Indians are stags." This evaluational process is entirely
natural at this level and lays a foundation for the building of language
and higher order abstractions. We proceeded by similarities, much too often
considered as identities.

Primitive men do not discuss abstract "ideas." As Boas has found,
"The Indian will not speak of goodness as such, although he may very well
speak of the goodness of a person. He will not speak of a state of bliss apart
from the person who is in such a state." However, Boas concludes,
"The fact that generalized forms of expression are not used does not prove
inability to form them, but it merely proves that the mode of life of the
people is such that they are not required" (3, pp. 64-67).

The use of abstract terms, such as a term for "goodness as such,"
made possible an enormous economy in communication, also a great increase in
human time-binding progress, and ultimately it made modern science possible. In
the meantime, the fact that we do abstract on higher orders becomes a danger if
we are not conscious that we are doing so and retain the primitive confusions
or identifications of orders of abstractions.

The following quotation7 from
"Being and Value in a Primitive Culture" by Dorothy D. Lee shows the extensional
(by fact, rather than higher order verbal generalizations)
type of language structure of the Trobrianders (25, p. 402):

If I were to go with a Trobriander to a garden where the taytu, a species of
yam, had just been harvested, I would come back and tell you: "There are
good taytu there; just the right degree of ripeness, large and perfectly
shaped; not a blight to be seen, not one rotten spot; nicely rounded at the
tips, with no spiky points; all first-run harvesting, no second
gleanings." The Trobriander would come back and say "Taytu"; and
he would have said all that I did and more. Even the phrase "There are
taytu" would represent a tautology, since existence is implied in being,
is, in fact an ingredient of being to the Trobriander. And all the attributes,
even if he could find words for them at hand in his own language, would have
been tautological, since the concept of taytu contains them all. In fact, if
one of these were absent, the object would not have been a taytu. Such a tuber,
if it is not at the proper harvesting ripeness, is not a taytu. If it is
unripe, it is a bwabawa; if over-ripe, spent, it is not a spent taytu but
something else, a yowana. If it is blighted it is a nukunokuna. If it has a
rotten patch, it is a taboula; if misshapen, it is an usasu; if perfect in
shape but small, it is a yagogu. If the tuber, whatever its shape or condition,
is a post-harvest gleaning, it is an ulumadala. When the spent tuber, the
yowana, sends its shoots underground, as we put it, it is not a yowana with
shoots, but a silisata. When new tubers have formed on these shoots, it is not
a silisata but a gadena....

As being is identical with the object, there is no word for to be; as
being is changeless, there is no word meaning to become.

It is significant, also, to find that the temporal differentiations and
temporal generalizations which we have are absent among the Trobrianders:

Trobriand verbs are timeless, making no temporal distinctions. History and
mythical reality are not "the past" to the Trobriander. They are
forever present, participating in all current being, giving meaning to all his
activities and all existence. A Trobriander will speak of the garden which his
mothers brother planted, or the one which the mythical Tudava planted, in
exactly the same terms with which he will refer to the garden which he himself
is planting now; and it will give him satisfaction to do so... (25, p. 403).

The Trobriander has no word for history. When he wants to distinguish between
different kinds of occasions, he will say, for example, "Molubabeba
in-child-his," that is, "in the childhood of Molubabeba," not
a previous phaseof this time, but a different kind of time (25,
p. 405; italics mine).

Many excellent papers and books have been written by anthropologists,
psychiatrists, linguists, etc., on how different primitive
people or different nationalities dissect nature differently in accordance with
the structure of their language.8

The main characteristics of primitive or "pre-logical" and
"paralogical" language structures may be summarized in their
identifications of different orders of abstractions and their lack of abstract
terms. The "perceptions" of people on primitive levels are often
different from ours, different in the degree to which higher order abstractions
are confused, identified with, and projected on lower order abstractions. They
identify or ascribe one value to essentially many-valued different
orders of abstractions and so become impervious to contradictions with
"reality" and impervious also to higher order experience.9

Aristotelian and Non-Aristotelian Language Systems

Aristotelian Language Structure.In mankinds cultural evolution,
our current abstractions became codified here and there into
systems, for instance the Aristotelian system. The term "system" is
used here in the sense of "a whole of related doctrinal functions"
(the doctrinal functions of the late Professor Cassius Keyser [17]). We are
concerned with this structure here because of its still enormous influence on
those of us whose language structure is of the Indo-European type.

I wish to emphasize here that in discussing the inadequacy of the Aristotelian
system in 1950, I in no way disparage the remarkable and unprecedented work of
Aristotle about 350 B.C. I acknowledge explicitly my profound admiration for
his extraordinary genius, particularly in consideration of the period in which
he lived. Nevertheless, the twisting of his system and the imposed immobility
of this twisted system, as enforced for nearly two thousand years by the
controlling groups, often under threats of torture and death, have led and can
only lead to more disasters. From what we know about Aristotle and his
writings, there is little doubt that, if alive, he would not tolerate such
twistings and artificial immobility of the system usually ascribed to him.

Space limitations prevent my going into details here, and I can but refer the
reader to my larger work on this subject, Science and Sanity: An
Introduction to Non-aristotelian Systems and General Semantics (21).
A rough summary in the form of a tabulation of Aristotelian and
non-Aristotelian orientations given in that volume (21, pp. xxv ff.) may help
to convey to the reader the magnitude of this problem.

Here I will stress some of the main structural considerations of the
Aristotelian system and their effects on our world outlook, evaluations, and,
therefore, even "perceptions." Practically since the beginning of
Aristotles formulations, and particularly after their later distortions,
there have been many criticisms of them, mostly ineffective because unworkable.
One of their most serious inadequacies was very lately found to be the belief
in the uniqueness of the subject-predicate form of representation, in the sense
that every kind of relation in this world can be expressed in that form, which
is obviously false to facts and would make science and mathematics
impossible.

I will quote the following remarks10
of Bertrand Russell, who did epoch-making work in his analysis of subject-predicate
relations:

The belief or unconscious conviction that all propositions are of the
subject-predicate formin other words, that every fact consists in some
thing having some qualityhas rendered most philosophers incapable of
giving any account of the world of science and daily life ... (37, p. 45; 21,
p. 85).

Philosophers have, as a rule, failed to notice more than two types of
sentence, exemplified by the two statements "this is yellow" and
"buttercups are yellow." They mistakenly suppose that these two were
one and the same type, and also that all propositions were of this type. The
former error was exposed by Frege and Peano; the latter was found to make the
explanation of order impossible. Consequently, the traditional view that all
propositions ascribe a predicate to a subject collapsed, and with it the
metaphysical systems which were based upon it, consciously or unconsciously
(39, p. 242; 21, p. 131).

Asymmetrical relations are involved in all seriesin space and time,
greater and less, whole and part, and many others of the most important
characteristics of the actual world. All these aspects, therefore, the logic
which reduces everything to subjects and predicates is compelled to condemn as
error and mere appearance (37, p. 45; 21, p. 188).

In this connection I may quote some remarks by Alfred Whitehead, who also did
most important work on this subject:

... the subject-predicate habits of thought ... had been impressed on the
European mind by the overemphasis on Aristotles logic during the long
mediaeval period. In reference to this twist of mind, probably Aristotle was
not an Aristotelian (49, pp. 80-81; 21, p. 85).

The evil produced by the Aristotelian "primary substance"
is exactly this habit of metaphysical emphasis upon the "subject-predicate" form
of proposition (49, p. 45).11

The alternate philosophic position must commence with denouncing
the whole idea of "subject qualified by predicate" as a trap set for
philosophers by the syntax of language (48, p. 14; 21, p. 85).12

In his "Languages and Logic" Benjamin Lee Whorf makes an analysis of
primitive and other language structures (50, pp. 43-52).

The Indo-European languages and many others give great prominence to a type of
sentence having two parts, each part built around a class of
wordssubstantives and verbswhich those languages treat differently
in grammar.... The Greeks, especially Aristotle, built up this contrast and
made it a law of reason. Since then, the contrast has been stated in logic in
many different ways: subject and predicate, actor and action, things and
relations between things, objects and their attributes, quantities and
operations. And, pursuant again to grammar, the notion became ingrained that
one of these classes of entities can exist in its own right but that the verb
class cannot exist without an entity of the other class, the "thing"
class.... Our Indian languages show that with a suitable grammar we may have
intelligent sentences that cannot be broken into subjects and predicates.13

The subject-predicate structure of language
resulted from the ascribing of "properties" or "qualities"
to "nature," whereas the "qualities," etc., are actually
manufactured by our nervous systems. The perpetuation of such projections tends
to keep mankind on the archaic levels of anthropomorphism and animism in their
evaluations of their surroundings and themselves.

The main verb through which these outlooks were structuralized in our language
is the verb "to be." Here I will give a very brief analysis of some
uses of the little word "is," and what important effects its use has
had on our "thinking." A full investigation of the term
"is" has been found to be very complex. The great mathematician and
logician, Augustus de Morgan, one of the founders of mathematical logic, has
justly said, in his Formal Logic (1847) (8, p. 56):

The complete attempt to deal with the term is would go to the form and
matter of everything in existence, at least, if not to the possible form
and matter of all that does not exist, but might. As far as it could be done,
it would give the grand Cyclopaedia, and its yearly supplement would be the
history of the human race for the time.

Here, following Russell, we can only state roughly that in the Indo-European
languages the verb "to be" has at least four entirely different uses
(36, p. 64)

As an auxiliary verb: It is raining.

As the "is" of existence: I am.

As the "is" of predication: The rose is red.

As the "is" of identity: The rose is a flower.

The first two are difficult to avoid in English, and relatively harmless. The
other two, however, are extremely pertinent to our discussion. If we say,
"The rose is red," we falsify everything we "know" in 1950
about our nervous systems and the structure of the empirical world. There is no
"redness" in nature, only different wave lengths of radiation. Our
reaction to those light waves is only our individual reaction. If one is a
Daltonist, for example, he will see "green." If one is color-blind,
he will see "gray." We may correctly say, "We see the rose as
red," which would not be a falsification.

The fourth, the "is" of identity, if used without consciousness of
the identifications implied, perpetuates a primitive type of evaluation. In
some languagesthe Slavic, for instancethere is no "is" of
identity. If we say, "I classify the rose as a flower," this is structurally
correct, and implies that our nervous system is doing the classifying.

The importance of that "is" of identity embedded in the structure of
our language can hardly be overemphasized, as it affects our neuro-evaluational
reactions and leads to mis-evaluations in the daily life of every one of us
which are sometimes very tragic.

Here let us recall the "philosophical grammar" of our language which
we call the "laws of thought," as given by Jevons (12; 21, p. 749):

The law of identity. Whatever is, is.

The law of contradiction. Nothing can both be, and not be.

The law of excluded third. Everything must either be, or not be.

These "laws" have different "philosophical"
interpretations, but for our purpose it is enough to emphasize that (a)
the second "law" represents a negative statement of the first, and
the third represents a corollary of the former two; namely, no third is
possible between two contradictories; and (b) the verb "to
be," or "is," and "identity" play a most fundamental
role in these formulations and the consequent semantic reactions.

"Identity" as a "principle" is defined as "absolute
sameness in all (every) respects." It can never
empirically be found in this world of ever-changing processes, nor on silent
levels of our nervous systems. "Partial identity" or "identity
in some respects" obviously represents only a self-contradiction in
terms. Identification, as the term is used here, can be observed very low in
the scale of life. It may be considered the first organic and/or organismal
relating of "cause" and "effect," order, etc., when lower
organisms responded effectively to signals "as if" they were
actualities. On lower levels such organismal identifications have survival
value. Laboratory observations show that the amoeba will exhibit reactions to
artificial stimulations, without food value, similar to its reactions to
stimuli with food value. The amoeba as a living bit of protoplasm has
organismally identified an artificial, valueless-as-food, laboratory
stimulus with "reality." Thus, although the reaction was there, the
evaluation was inappropriate, which does not change the biological fact that
without such identifications, or automatic response to a stimulus, no amoeba
could survive.

Advancing in the scale of life, the identifications become fewer, the
identification reactions become more flexible, "proper evaluation"
increases, and the animals become more and more "intelligent," etc.
If identifications are found in humans, they represent only a survival of
primitive reactions and mis-evaluations, or cases of underdevelopment or
regression, which are pathological for humans.

Many of our daily identifications are harmless, but in principle may, and
often do, lead to disastrous consequences. Here I give three examples of
identification, one by a psychiatric hospital patient, another by a
"normal" student of mine, and a third by a group of natives in the
Belgian Congo.

When I was studying psychiatry in St. Elizabeths Hospital, a doctor was
showing me a catatonic patient who was standing rigid in a corner. For years he
had not spoken and did not seem to understand when spoken to. He happened to
have been born and spent part of his life in Lithuania, where the people had
been trained for several generations by the czar to hate the Poles. The doctor,
without that historical knowledge, introduced me to the catatonic by saying,
"I want you to meet one of your compatriots, also a Pole." The
patient was immediately at my throat, choking me, and it took two guards to
tear him away.

Another example is of a young woman who was a student in my seminar some years
ago. She held a responsible position, but in her whole orientation she was
pathologically fearful to the point of having daydreams of murdering her father
because he did not defend her against her mother, who had beaten her and nagged
her. During her childhood her brother, who was a number of years older and the
favorite of their mother, patronized her, and she hated him for this
attitude.

In this particular interview I was especially pleased with her progress and so
I was speaking to her smilingly. Suddenly she jumped at me and began to choke
me. This lasted only about five seconds. Then it turned out that she identified
my smile with the patronizing attitude of her brother, and so she was choking
"her brother," but it happened to be my neck.

There is another incident I want to tell you about that will indicate the
problems we have to deal with (35, p. 52). We have all seen a box of Aunt
Jemima Pancake Flour, with the picture of "Aunt Jemima" on the front.
Dr. William Bridges of the New York Zoological Society has told this story
about it: A United States planter in the Belgian Congo had some 250 natives
working for him. One day the local chieftain called him and said he understood
that the planter was eating natives, and that if he did not stop, the chief
would order his men to stop work. The planter protested that he did not eat
natives and called his cook as a witness. But the cook insisted that
he did indeed eat natives, though he refused to say whether they were fried,
boiled, stewed, or what not. Some weeks later the mystery was cleared up when
the planter was visited by a friend from the Sudan who had had a similar
experience. Between them they figured out the answer. Both had received
shipments of canned goods from the United States. The cans usually bore labels
with pictures of the contents, such as cherries, tomatoes, peaches, etc. So
when the cooks saw labels with the picture of "Aunt Jemima," they
believed that an Aunt Jemima must be inside!

A structure of language perpetuating identification reactions keeps us on the
level of primitive or prescientific types of evaluations, stressing
similarities and neglecting (not consciously) differences. Thus, we do not
"see" differences, and react as if two objects, persons, or
happenings were "the same." Obviously this is not "proper
evaluation" in accordance with our knowledge of 1950.

In analyzing the Aristotelian codifications, we have to deal also with
two-valued, "either-or" types of orientation. Practically all humans,
the most primitive peoples not excluded, who never heard of Greek philosophers,
have some sort of "either-or" types of orientations. It becomes
obvious that our relations to the world outside and inside our skins often
happen to be, on the gross level, two-valued. For instance, we deal with
day or night, land or water, etc. On the living level we have
life or death, our heart beats or not, we breathe or
suffocate, are hot or cold, etc. Similar relations occur on higher
levels. Thus we have induction or deduction, materialism or
idealism, capitalism or communism, Democrat or Republican, etc.
And so on endlessly on all levels.

In living life many issues are not so sharp; therefore, a system
which posits the general sharpness of "either-or" and so objectives
"kind" ("properties," "qualities," etc.), is too
distorted and unduly limited. It must be revised and made more flexible in
terms of "degrees." The new orientation requires a
physico-mathematical "way of thinking." Thus if, through our
unconscious assumptions, inferences, etc., we evaluate the event, the
submicroscopic process level, as if it were the same as the gross
macroscopic object which we perceive before us, we remain in our two-valued rut
of "thinking." On the macroscopic level, if there are two apples side
by side, for example, we perceive that they may "touch" or "not
touch" (see Figure 2). This language does not apply to the submicroscopic
process level, where the problem of "touch" or "not touch"
becomes a problem of degree. There are continual interactions between the two
on submicroscopic levels which we cannot "perceive." In accordance
with the assumptions of science1950, we must visualize a process.14 It follows that this
is the way we should "think" about an apple, or a human being, or
a theory.

There is no "perception" without interpolation and interpretation
(21, pp. xxviii ff.). We cannot stop it. But we can visualize the latest
achievements of mathematical physics and other sciences and read these into the
silent unspeakable processes going on around us and in us.

The Aristotelian language structure also perpetuated what I call
"elementalism," or splitting verbally what cannot be split
empirically, such as the term mind by itself and the terms body,
space, time, etc., by themselves. It was only a few years ago (1908) that
the outstanding mathematician Minkowski said in his epoch-making address
entitled "Space and Time," delivered at the 80th Assembly of German
Natural Scientists and Physicians at Cologne, "The views of space and time
which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental
physics, and therein lies their strength. They are radical. Henceforth space by
itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only
a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality" (32, p.
75).

This "union" of what used to be considered distinct separate
entities had to be accompanied by a change in the structure of the language, in
this particular case by the formulation of Minkowskis new
four-dimensional geometry of "space-time," in which "space"
and "time" were permanently united by a simple grammatical hyphen,
thus making the general theory of relativity possible.

The old elementalistic structure of language built for us a fictitious,
anthropomorphic, animistic world not much different from that of the
primitives. Modern science makes imperative a language structure which is
non-elementalistic and does not split artificially what cannot be split
empirically. Otherwise, we remain handicapped by neuro-evaluational blockages,
lack of creativeness, lack of understanding, and lack of broad perspectives,
etc., and disturbed by inconsistencies, paradoxes, etc.

The points I have touched upon here: namely, the subject-predicate type of
structure, the "is" of identity, two-valued "either-or"
orientations, and elementalism, are perhaps the main features of the
Aristotelian language structure that molded our "perceptions" and
hindered the scientific investigations which at this date have so greatly, in
many instances, freed us from the older limitations and allowed us to "see
the world anew." The "discovery of the obvious" is well known to
be the most difficult, simply because the old habits of "thinking"
have blocked our capacity to "see the old anew" (Leibnitz).

Non-Aristotelian Language Systems.As usually happens with humans,
when we come to an impasse and find that revisions and new approaches are
necessary, we do something about it. In this case, with the tremendous advances
in science, a structure of language which did not falsify modern discoveries
became imperative. As I do not know of any other non-Aristotelian system at
this date, I must ask the readers indulgence that I will have to speak
rather exclusively about my own formulations. Many others have made
applications, but here I will deal mostly with the theoretical side.

The new system is called "non-Aristotelian" since it includes the
prevailing systems of evaluation as special cases within a more general system.
Historically the Aristotelian system influenced the Euclidean system, and both
underlie the consequent Newtonian system. The first non-Aristotelian revision
parallels and is interdependent with non-Euclidean and non-Newtonian
developments in modern mathematics and mathematical physics. To satisfy the
need to unify exact sciences and general human orientations was one of the main
aims of the non-Aristotelian revision, historically the latest, because of its
much greater complexities (21, esp. p. 97).

The non-Aristotelian system grew out of the new evaluation in 1921 of human
beings as a time-binding class of life (18). This evaluation is based on a
functional rather than zoölogical or mythological approach and
considers "man" as "an
organism-as-a-whole-in-an-environment." Here the reactions of humans are
not split verbally and elementalistically into separate "body,"
"mind," "emotions," "intellect," or different
"senses," etc., by themselves, which affects the problems of
"perception" when considered from a non-elementalistic point of view.
With a time-binding consciousness, our criteria of values, and so behavior, are
based on the study of human potentialities, not on statistical averages on the
level of homo homini lupus drawn from primitive and/or un-sane evaluational
reactions which are on record (23).

Common sense and ordinary observations make clear that the average so-called
"normal" person is so extremely complex as to practically evade a
nonsegmented, non-elementalistic analysis. In order to make such an analysis,
it became necessary to investigate the main available forms of human reactions,
such as mathematics, mathematical foundations, many branches of sciences,
history, history of cultures, anthropology, philosophy, psychology,
"logic," comparative religions, etc. It was found essential to
concentrate on the study of two extremes of human psycho-logical reactions:
(a) reactions at their best, because of their exceptional
predictability, validity, and lasting constructiveness in the time-binding
process, as in mathematics, the foundations of mathematics, mathematical
physics, exact sciences, etc., which are manifestations of some of the deepest
human psycho-logical reactions; and (b) reactions at their worst, as
exemplified by psychiatric cases. In these investigations it became obvious
that physico-mathematical methods have application to our daily life on all
levels, linking science, and particularly the exact sciences, with problems of
sanity in the sense of adjustment to "facts" and "reality."

In fact it was found that, to change the linguistic structure of our
prevailing Aristotelian system, methods had to be taken bodily from
mathematics. Thus, the structure of our language was changed through the use of
extensional devices without changing the language itself. This will be
explained briefly a little later.

When the premises of this new approach had been formulated, I found
unexpectedly that they turned out to be a denial of the old "laws of
thought" and the foundation for a non-Aristotelian system, the modus
operandi of which I have named "General Semantics." The premises
are very simple and may be stated by means of an analogy:

A map is not the territory. (Words are not the things they
represent.)

A map covers not all the territory. (Words cannot cover all they
represent.)

A map is self-reflexive. (In language we can speak about language.)

We notice that the old prescientific assumptions violate the first two
premises and disregard the third (20, pp. 750 ff.; 24).

The third premise turns out to be an application to everyday
life of the extremely important work of Bertrand Russell, who attempted to solve
self-contradictions in the foundations of mathematics by his
theory of mathematical or logical types. In this connection the term
self-reflexive was introduced by Josiah Royce. The theory of
mathematical types made me aware of new kinds of linguistic perplexities to
which practically no one, except a very few mathematicians, had paid attention
before. The realization and analysis of such difficulties led me to the
discovery that the principles of different orders of abstractions,
multi-ordinality of terms, (over/under)-defined terms, second-order reactions
("thinking" about "thinking," doubt of doubt, fear of fear,
etc.), thalamo-cortical interaction, the circularity of human knowledge, etc.,
may be considered as generalizing the theory of mathematical types.15

The degrees to which we are "conscious of abstracting," which
includes, among others, the above, becomes a key problem in the way we evaluate
and therefore to a large extent may affect the way in which we
"perceive." If we can devise methods to increase our
"consciousness of abstracting," this would eventually free us from
the archaic, prescientific, and/or Aristotelian limitations inherent in the
older language structures. The following structural expedients to achieve this
I call the extensional devices, and the application of them
automatically brings about an orientation in conformity with the latest
scientific assumptions.

Extensional Devices. 1. Indexes, as in x1, x2, x3 ... xn;
chair1, chair2, chair3 ... chairn; Smith1, Smith2, Smith3 ... Smithn, etc.
The role of the indexes is to produce indefinitely many proper names for
the endless array of unique individuals or situations with which we have to
deal in life. Thus, we have changed a generic name into a proper
name. If this indexing becomes habitual, as an integral part of our
evaluating processes, the psycho-logical effect is very marked. We become aware
that most of our "thinking" in daily life as well as in science is
hypothetical in character, and the moment-to-moment consciousness of this makes
us cautious in our generalizations, something which cannot be easily conveyed
within the Aristotelian structure of language. A generic term (such as "chair") deals with classes and stresses similarities to the partial exclusion or neglect or
disregard of differences. The use of the indexes brings to consciousness the
individual differences, and thus leads to more appropriate evaluation, and so
eventually "perception," in a given instance. The harmful
identifications which result from the older language structures are often
prevented or eliminated, and they may become supplanted by more flexible
evaluations, based on a maximum probability orientation.

The role of the chain-indexes is to provide a technique for the introduction
of environmental factors, conditions, situations, etc. On the human level,
these would include psycho-logical, socio-cultural, etc., factors.

In a world where a given "cause" has or may have a multiplicity of
"effects," each "effect" becomes or may become a
"cause," and so on indefinitely. As we know from psychiatry, for
instance, a single happening to an individual in childhood may start a
chain-reaction series, and color and twist his psycho-logical or even
psycho-somatic responses for the rest of his life. Chain-indexes also convey
the general mechanisms of chain-reactions, which operate not only in atomic
fission, but everywhere in this world. We are particularly interested here that
this includes organic processes, human interrelations, and also the processes
of time-binding, as expressed in the "spiral theory" of our
time-binding energy (18, 1st ed., pp. 232 ff.).

Chain-indexes (indexing an index indefinitely) are not new in mathematics.
They have been used automatically, but to the best of my knowledge a general
pattern was not formulated for their application in everyday life. For an
example of their use in a scientific problem, see "On the Use of
Chain-indexing to Describe and Analyze the Complexities of a Research Problem
in Bio-Chemistry" by Mortimer B. Lipsett (30).

To recapitulate, for better or worse, we are living in a world of processes,
and so "cause-effect" chain-reactions, and we need to have linguistic
means for ourselves and others to manage our evaluations in such a world.
Perhaps the formulation of a linguistic chain-index pattern will help this.

3. Dates, as in Smith11920, Smith11940, Smith11950 ... Smith1t. The
use of dates places us in a physico-mathematical, four-dimensional (at least) space-time world of motion and change, of growth, decay,
transformation, etc., yet the representations of the processes can be
arrested at any given point by linguistic means for purposes of
analysis, clarity, communication, etc. This gives us techniques to handle
dynamic actualities by static means.

Thus, it probably would make a good deal of difference whether a given
automobile is a 1930 or a 1950 model, if we are interested in buying one. We
are not as a rule similarly conscious of "dating" our theories,
creeds, etc., however, although it is "well known" to what extent
dates affect science, theories, books, different customs and cultures, people
and all life included.

As another example, if we read the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels (31) we find the word "modern" on many pages. It is
easy to evaluate the "modern" as "1950," which apparently
many readers do. My suggestion is that when we find that word we put on the
margin by hand the date "1848." With that dating, many arguments
become antiquated, and so obsolete, because we are living in the world of 1950,
which is entirely different.

4. Etc. The use of "etc." as a part of our evaluating
processes leads to awareness of the indefinitely many factors in a process
which can never be fully known or perceived, facilitates
flexibility, and gives a greater degree of conditionality in our semantic
reactions. This device trains us away from dogmatism, absolutism, etc. We are
reminded of the second premise (the map does not cover all the
territory) and indirectly of the first premise (the map is not the
territory).

Incidentally, in the "etc." we find the key to the solution of
mathematical "infinity," with important psycho-logical implications
(21, chap. xiv).

5. Quotes, as in "body," "mind,"
"emotion," "intellect," etc., forewarn us that
elementalistic or metaphysical terms are not to be trusted, and that
speculations based on them are misleading or dangerous.

6. Hyphens. The use of hyphens links linguistically the actual
empirical complex inter-relatedness in this world. There are most important
structural implications involving the hyphen which represent recent advances in
sciences and other branches of knowledge.

For example, the hyphen (a) in space-time revolutionized
physics, transformed our whole world-outlook, and became the foundation of
non-Newtonian systems; (b) in psycho-biological marks sharply the
difference between animals and much more complex humans (in my interpretation
of it). This differentiation is also on the basis of the present
non-Aristotelian system, where "man" as a "time-binder" is not
merely biological, but psycho-biological. The hyphen (c) in psycho-somatic
is slowly transforming medical understanding, practice, etc.; (d) in
socio-culturalindicates the need for a new applied anthropology, human ecology,
etc.; (e) in neuro-linguistic and neuro-semantic links our verbal,
evaluational reactions with our neuro-physiological processes; (f) in
organism-as-a-whole-in-an-environmentn, indicates that not even an
"organism-as-a-whole" can exist without an environment, and is a fiction when
considered in "absolute isolation."

In regard to "psycho-biological" and "psycho-somatic," the
original workers have missed the importance of the hyphen and its implications
and used the terms as one word. This becomes a linguistic misrepresentation,
and these pioneers did not realize that they were hiding an extreme human
complexity behind an apparent simplicity of a single term. They did this on the
unjustified, mistaken assumption that one word implies unity; in the meantime,
it is misleading to the public because it conceals the inter-acting
complexities.

Theoretical and Practical Implications. The simplicity of the
extensional devices is misleading, and a mere "intellectual
understanding" of them, without incorporating them into our living
evaluational processes, has no effect whatsoever. A recanalization and
retraining of our usual methods of evaluation is required, and this is what is
often very difficult for adults, although comparatively easy for children. The
revised structure of language, as explained briefly here, has
neuro-physiological effects, as it necessitates "thinking" in
terms of "facts," or visualizing processes, before making
generalizations. This procedure results in a slight neurological delay of
reaction, facilitating thalamo-cortical integration, etc.

The old Aristotelian language structure, with its subject-predicate form,
elementalism, etc., hindered rather than induced such desirable
neuro-physiological functioning. It led instead to verbal speculations divorced
from actualities, inducing eventually "split personalities" and other
pathological reactions.

We may recall the pertinent statement by the outstanding mathematician,
Hermann Weyl, who wrote in his "The Mathematical Way of Thinking":
"Indeed, the first difficulty the man in the street encounters when he is
taught to think mathematically is that he must learn to look things much more
squarely in the face; his belief in words must be shattered; he must learn to
think more concretely" (47).

Healthy normal persons naturally evaluate to some degree in
accordance with the extensional methods and with some "natural
order of evaluation," etc., without being aware of it. The structural
formulation of these issues, however, and the corresponding revision of our old
language structure, make possible their analysis and teachability, which is of
paramount importance in our human process of time-binding.

There are many indications so far that the use of the extensional devices and
even a partial "consciousness of abstracting" have potentialities for
our general human endeavor to understand ourselves and others. The extent of
the revision required if we are to follow through from the premises as
previously stated is not yet generally realized. Our old habits of evaluation,
ingrained for centuries if not millenniums, must first be re-evaluated and
brought up to date in accordance with modern knowledge.

In what way does a non-Aristotelian form of representation bring about a
change in evaluating processes and effect deep psychological changes? We have
seen how the structure of a language often determines the way we look at the
world, other persons, and ourselves. My experiences, and the experiences of
many others, confirm that we can and do evaluate stimuli differently as the
result of the application of the non-Aristotelian extensional methods.

In practically all fields of human endeavor there are indications that new,
more flexible, etc., attitudes can be brought about, with resulting influences
on the interrelationships of the given individual with himself and others. A
majority of these are in the field of education, but they include fields as
diverse as psycho-somatic medicine, psychiatry, psychotherapy, law, economics,
business, architecture, art, etc., political economy, politics, social
anthropology, reading difficulties, etc.

The non-Aristotelian principles have been utilized in the United States Senate
Naval Committee in connection with extremely important national problems such
as "Establishing a Research Board for National Security" (45, p. 6),
"A Scientific Evaluation of the Proposal that the War and Navy Departments
be Merged into a Single Department of National Defense" (46),
"Training of Officers for the Naval Service" (42, pp. 55-57). To the
best of my knowledge today even on some ships in active duty the personnel are
trained in some principles of general semantics (see also 33, esp. chap. i).

One of the main characteristics of the differences in orientation is that the
Aristotelian language form fosters evaluating "by definition" (or
"intension"), whereas the non-Aristotelian or physico-mathematical
orientation involves evaluating "by extension," taking into
consideration the actual "facts" in the particular situation
confronting us.

For example, some older physicians still attempt to cure "a disease"
and not the actual patient in front of them whose psycho-somatic malfunctioning
and manifestations, observed or inferred from the patients behavior or
record, involve a multiplicity of individual factors not covered by any
possible definition of "a disease." Fortunately, today the majority
of physicians try to cure the patient, not "a disease."

In his paper on "The Problem of Stuttering" Professor Wendell
Johnson (13) speaks of the significance of the diagnosis of a child as "a
stutterer":

Having called the child a "stutterer" (or the equivalent),
they react less and less to the child and more and more to what they have
called him. In spite of quite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, they
assume that the child either cannot speak or has not learned. So they proceed
to "help" him speak.... And when, "in spite of all their
help" he "stutters worse than ever," they worry more and more....
There has been and still is a great deal of controversy among speech
pathologists as to the most probable cause of stuttering.... But no one
outside of general semantics has ever suggested that the diagnosis of
stuttering was a cause of it, probably because no one outside of general
semantics has appeared to realize the degree to which two persons talking about
"stuttering" could be at variance in what they were talking about,
and could be influencing what they were talking about. The uncertainty
principle which expresses the effect of the observer on what he observes can be
extended to include the effect of the speaker on what he names (pp. 189-93).16

Changes in attitudes, in our ways of evaluating, involve intimately
"perceptual processes" at different levels. Making us
conscious of our unconscious assumptions is essential; it is
involved in all psychotherapy and should be a part of education in general. In
this connection the extremely important and relevant work of Dr. Adelbert Ames,
Jr., at the Hanover Institute and Princeton University, etc., is very useful in
bringing about such consciousness. For example, Dr. J. S. A. Bois (4),
consulting psychologist in Montreal and past president of the Canadian
Psychological Association, in his report on "Executive Training and
General Semantics" writes of his class in a basic training course in the
non-Aristotelian methodology to seven key men of an industrial organization:

I proceeded to disequilibrate their self-assurance by demonstrating that our
sensory perceptions are not reliable.... We ended by accepting the fact
that the world which each one of us perceives is not an "objective" world of happenings, but a "subjective" world of
happenings-meanings.

They were quite ready to accept these new views, but I felt that it was
necessary to make them conscious of the fact that it is not sufficient to
"understand" certain principles and to accept them
"intellectually." It is imperative to change our habitual methods of
thinking, and this is not so easy as it seems. To bring this last point home, I
explained to them the senary number notation system, and gave them some
homework on it: making a multiplication table, long additions, subtractions,
multiplications and divisions. The following day they were conscious that it is
annoying, irritating, and not so easy to pass from one method of thinking to
another. They realized that keeping accounts in the senary system would mean a
revolution in the office and the factory, would demand new gears in the
calculating machines, etc., etc. I felt the stage was set for the main part of
the course.... It is impossible to evaluate quantitatively the success or
failure of such a course. The fact that the top group wanted it to be given to
their immediate subordinates is already an indication that they found it
helpful.17

Bois reported further that the men made their own evaluations in terms of
increased efficiency, better "emotional" control and maturity, better
techniques of communication among themselves and with their subordinates,
etc.

Observations made of a formalized group procedure at Northwestern University
by Liston Tatum suggest that when people are forced to follow the "natural
order of evaluation" (evaluating by facts first, then making
generalizations) they talk to each other differently (43).

The effect of language on our visual evaluations is shown in a study reported
by L. Carmichael, H. P. Hogan, and A. A. Walter (5, pp. 74-82) entitled
"An Experimental Study of the Effect of Language on the Reproduction of
Visually Perceived Form." It was investigated whether the reproduction of
visual forms was affected when a set of twelve figures was presented with a
name assigned to each figure. The subjects were to reproduce the figures as
accurately as possible after the series was over. The same visual figure was
presented to all subjects, but one list of names was given to the figures when
they were presented to one group of subjects, and the other list of names
accompanied the figures given to a second group. For example: kidney bean
canoe. The results indicated that "the present experiment
tends to confirm the observations of previous experimenters in this field, and to show
that, to some extent at least, the reproduction of forms may be determined by
the nature of words presented orally to subjects at the time that they are first
perceiving specific visual forms."

Professor Irving Lee has been trying out the above procedures on students in
his classes in general semantics at Northwestern University and reports (in a
personal communication to me) that so far his students do not react as
the subjects in the above experiment did, but that his students "drew the
pictures far less influenced by the labels applied."

Of his teaching of non-Aristotelian methodology to policemen, Lee has written
a preliminary report of a three-year pilot study with 140 policemen, from
patrolmen to captains, enrolled in the Traffic Police Administration Course in
the Northwestern University Traffic Institute (27). From the reports of the
instructors and interviews and information from a cross-section of the students
after completion of the course, Lee writes, the results indicate that the
policemen saw themselves and their work in the school in quite different light
after advice on the extensionalizing processes.

Psychologists and others may be interested in the following personal
communication giving preliminary data which indicate new fields of
investigation in criminology, personality development, etc. Dr. Douglas M.
Kelley, professor of criminology at the University of California at Berkeley,
has recently written me:

At present I am concerned with the introduction of general semantics into two
areasinterrogation and personality development. The first field is
covered in a course which I give for 3 units, Detection of Deception, which
consists to begin with of a half semester of straight general semantics,
beginning with a discussion on the futility of words in communication and
carrying right through to the various devices. The latter half of the course is
concerned with the emotional relation of words as demonstrated by various types
of lie detectors, and with report writing, where again the problems of
multi-ordinality, etc., are dealt with at great length. A survey of all the
existent literature indicates a complete lack of information in this area, and
this approach purely based on your work reports an entirely new notion and
opens up interrogative techniques and vistas hitherto unknown. It is my opinion
from talking with a number of police officers that this approach will yield one
of the most valuable results achieved from application of general semantics. In
addition, I am teaching the same material to the Berkeley police force.

In my course on the Psychiatric Aspects of Criminology, a large amount of
discussion is included, based upon your work, as a method of indicating how and
why people behave like human beings, and what possibly can be done about it.
The students are all most favorably inclined toward the general semantics
orientation, and I expect within a year or so to have a real program
developed.18

During the Second World War
Kelley19 employed the basic principles of
non-Aristotelian methodology with over seven thousand cases in the European
Theater of Operations, reported on in his article "The Use of General
Semantics and Korzybskian Principles as an Extensional Method of Group
Psychotherapy in Traumatic Neuroses" (15). The principles were applied (as
individual therapies and as group therapies) at every treatment level from the
forward area to the rear-most echelon, in front line aid stations, in
exhaustion centers, and in general hospitals. "That they were employed
with success is demonstrated by the fact that psychiatric evacuations from the
European Theater were held to a minimum," Dr. Kelley states (16, pp.
vi-vii). "[The] other techniques are, of course, of value but these two
simple devices [indexing and dating] proved remarkably potent in this type of
neurotic reaction" (15, p. 7).

An example of the effect of indexing and dating, the main devices by which the
structure of our language is made similar in structure to the world, may be
seen by the reactions of a veteran from the Pacific Theater of War. This
veteran was a student of Professor Elwood Murray at the University of Denver.
I quote from the veterans report:

An example of pure identification comes out in the veterans dislike for
rice. His first view of the enemy dead was that of a Jap soldier which was in
the process of deterioration. The bag of rice the soldier had been carrying was
torn open and grains of rice were scattered over the body mixed in with
maggots. When the veteran, to this day, sees rice, the above described scene is
vivid and he imagines grains of rice moving in his dish. To overcome this, he
has eaten rice several times trying to remember the rice before him is not the
same as that on the body. Though the food is not relished, he has succeeded in
overcoming the vomiting reflex at the sight of rice (19, p. 262).

These mechanisms of evaluating or "perceiving" similarities
and neglecting, or not being fully aware of, the differences are
potentially present in every one of us, but usually not in such extreme
degrees. This involves the lack of differentiation between the silent and
verbal levels and nonawareness of our processes of abstracting. The different
orders of abstractions are identified, an inference is evaluated as if
it were a description, a description as if it were the nonverbal
"object" our nervous system constructed, and an "object" as
if it were the nonverbal, submicroscopic, dynamic process.

In our non-Aristotelian work we deal very little, if at all, with
"perceptions" as such. As our attitudes, however, are bound to be
involved with our "perceptions," it would appear that the
investigation of the structure of language becomes relevant indeed.

A great deal of work has been and is being done in struggling with the problem
of prejudices. Analyses show that the mechanisms of prejudices involve
identifications of verbal with nonverbal levels. That is, an individual or
group is evaluated by the label and not by the extensional facts (26, pp.
17-28; 28). In a discussion of mechanisms of prejudice and a report on his
teaching of general semantics to approximately six hundred people where he
stressed the confusion of observation and inferential statements, the response
to labels as if they labeled more than aspects, etc., Lee reports one of his
findings as follows:

Teachers reported greatly reduced tension when students came to apply what
they heard to differences of opinion in the class discussions. The questions
"Could they be called anything else?" "Is that an
inference?" "Is that what could be observed?" put to a member
making a sharp statement created a kind of game atmosphere. An example typical
of many occurred in one discussion concerned with what people say about
Negroes. Two of the participants most vocal in their assertions that
"Negroes wont take advantage of education even if made available"
were brought to scrutinize those assertions without the antagonism that results
in the usual pro and con debating (28, p. 32).

It is of particular interest to consider the methods of the magicians, who
have highly developed their art and even science for purposes of entertainment.
Their methods of magic, however, have a deep underlying psychology of
deception, self-deception, and misdirection. They have their own literature, so
important for psychology, psychiatry, and daily life.

I quote from the paper by Dr. Douglas Kelley 20 entitled "The Psycho-logical Basis of
Misdirection: An Extensional Non-aristotelian Method for Prevention of
Self-deception" ( 14, pp. 53-60) :

While the artist in conjuring never hypnotizes his audience, not even in
India, he accomplishes much the same results by his ability to create illusions
by giving a wrong direction to their expectations and assumptions. By this
means he can make his public fail to see what is in front of their very eyes,
or believe that they see what is not there (p. 53). . . . A general though
unconscious belief in the three aristotelian "laws of thought" plays
a part of major importance in the success of such misdirection, since there is
a general tendency to react in terms of those "laws."

For instance, Dr. Kelley explains,

If a hat is faked with a false bottom, it may be shown to be apparently empty
by the camouflaged lining in the bottom. If it is then tossed about in a
reckless fashion, it simulates an empty hat since nothing drops out. Since,
according to the two-valued "law of the excluded middle," an existent
thing has certain "properties" or does not have them, and since most
people following this law expect to see objects if they are present in a hat
and expect them to fall out when it is inverted, they are easily fooled by the
misdirection employed and consequently are unable to predict the appearance of
the rabbit which is eventually drawn forth by the conjurer (p. 57).

Magicians find that children are much more difficult to deceive
than adults, as the structural implications of our language have not yet
to such an extent put their limitations on the ability of children to
"perceive."

The Circularity of Human Knowledge

The electronic or electro-colloidal processes are operating on submicroscopic
levels. From the indefinitely many characteristics of these processes, our
nervous system abstracts and integrates a comparatively few, which we may call
the gross or macroscopic levels, or the "objective" levels, all of
them not verbal. The microscopic levels must be considered as instrumentally
aided "sense data" and I will not deal with them here. Then,
abstracting further, first on the labeling or descriptive levels, we pass to
the inferential levels, and we can try to convey to the other fellow our
"feeling about feeling," "thinking about thinking," etc.,
which actually happen on the silent levels. Finally, we come to the point where
we need to speak about speaking.

Scientifically it is known that the submicroscopic levels are not
"perceptible" or "perceptual." We do not and cannot
"perceive" the "electron," but we observe actually the
results of the eventual "electronic processes." That is, we observe
the "effects" and assume the "causes." In other words, as
explained before, our submicroscopic knowledge is hypothetical in character.
The world behaves as if its mechanisms were such as our highest
abstractions lead us to believe, and we will continue to invent theories
with their appropriateterminologies to account for the intrinsic
mechanisms of the world we live in, ourselves included. We read into nature our
own latest highest abstractions, thus completing the inherent circularity of
human knowledge, without which our understanding of nature is impossible.

Because of what was explained in the first part of this chapter, and aided by
the extensional methods and devices, we must come to the conclusion that inferential
knowledge is often much more reliable at a date, after cross-verification, than
the original "sense data," with which historically we had to start and
which have been found to be wanting.

In scientizing, the inferential data must converge. If they
do not, we usually have to revise our theories. It is well known that when a new
factor is discovered our older generalizations have to be revised for the sake of
the integration of our knowledge (21, pp. xxviii ff.). 21

Our inferences, as abstractions on other levels than the "sense
data," may also be on lower or higher orders of abstractions. The
structure of our recent knowledge is such that we read into, or project onto,
the silent, submicroscopic process levels the highest abstractions yet made by
man, our hypotheses, inferences, etc.

Thus, all our fundamental deeper knowledge must be, and can never be anything
but, hypothetical, as what we see, hear, feel, speak about, or infer, is never
it, but only our human abstractions about "it." What
kind of linguistic form our inferential knowledge is cast in thus becomes of
utmost importance. As Edward Sapir has put it, "We see and hear and
otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our
community predispose certain choices of interpretation" (41, p. 245).

This circular process of our nervous systems in inter-action with the
environments turns out to be a "feedback system," a most happy term
which has been introduced lately and which exactly depicts the situation.
According to Lawrence Frank (10):

We are shifting our focus of interest from static entities to dynamic
processes and the order of events as seen in a context or field where there are
inter-reactions and circular processes in operation.... The concept of
teleological mechanisms, however it may be expressed in different terms, may be
viewed as an attempt to escape from these older mechanistic formulations that
now appear inadequate, and to provide new and more fruitful conceptions and
more effective methodologies for studying self-regulating processes,
self-orienting systems and organisms, and self-directing personalities....
Thus, the terms feedback, servomechanisms, circular systets, and
circular processes may be viewed as different but equivalent expressions
of much the same basic conception (10, pp. 190, 191). 22

The mechanisms of "feedback" have been brought to their culmination
in humans, and the process of time-binding itself may be considered as an
unprecedented, unique organic spiraling of feedbacks.
In the exponential "spiral theory" given in my Manhood of Humanity
(18, pp. 232 ff.), our time-binding capacity is obviously based on feedback
mechanisms, chain-reactions, etc., without which humans as humans could not
exist. The new understanding of humans as a time-binding class of life, free
from the older crippling mythological or zoological assumptions, is one of the
pivotal points toward a new evaluation of the unique role of humans in this
world. It encourages or sponsors better understanding of ourselves, not only in
relation to the world at large, but also toward ourselves.

I believe it is essential to begin with an entirely new functional
formulation, with the implications which this involves for the study of
"man" as "an organism-as-a-whole-in-an-environment,"
including our neuro-semantic and neuro-linguistic environments as
environment.

In closing, I can find no more fitting summary than to quote the passages
given below, which so beautifully and profoundly express the foundation of
human knowledge.

It was Cassius J. Keyser who said:

... for it is obvious, once the fact is pointed out, that the character of
human history, the character of human conduct, and the character of all our
human institutions depend both upon what man is and in equal or greater
measure upon what we humans think man is (17, p. 424).23

This inescapable characteristic of human living has been formulated
differently, but just as aptly, by Dr. Alexis Carrel:

To progress again, man must remake himself. And he cannot remake himself
without suffering. For he is both the marble and the sculptor (6, p. 274).

Arthur S. Eddington expresses himself in different words:

And yet, in regard to the nature of things, this knowledge is only an empty
shella form of symbols. It is knowledge of structural form, and not
knowledge of content. All through the physical world runs that unknown content,
which must surely be the stuff of our consciousness. Here is a hint of aspects
deep within the world of physics, and yet unattainable by the methods of
physics. And, moreover, we have found that where science has progresses the
farthest, the mind has but regained from nature that which the mind has put
into nature.

We have found a strange foot-print on the shores of the unknown. We have
devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origin. At
last, we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint.
And Lo! it is our own (9, p. 200).24

11. HADAMARD, J. S. An essay on the psychology of invention in the
mathematical field. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1945.

12. JEVONS, W. S. The elements of logic. New York: American Book Co.,
1883.

13.JOHNSON, W. The problem of stuttering from the point of view of general
semantics. In M. Kendig (ed.), Papers 2d Amer. Cong. General Semantics.
Lakeville, Conn.: Institute of General Semantics, 1943.

15. KELLEY, D. M. The use of general semantics and Korzybskian principles as
an extensional method of group psychotherapy in traumatic neuroses. Lakeville,
Conn.: Institute of General Semantics, 1948. (Mimeographed.)

20. KORZYBSKI, A. A non-aristotelian system and its necessity for rigour in
mathematics and physics. In Science and sanity: an introduction to
non-aristotelian systems and general semantics (3d ed.) by the same author.
(Supplement III, first edition of Science and Sanity, 1933.) Lakeville,
Conn.: International Non-aristotelian Library Publishing Co., 1948. Supplement
III, pp. 747-61.

32. MINKOWSKI, H. Space and time. In H. A. Lorentz, A. Einstein, H. Minkowski,
and H. Weyl, The principle of relativity: A collection of originalmemoirs on the special and general theory of relativity. New York: Dodd,
Mead & Co., Inc., 1923.

42. SAUNDERS, J. A. Memorandum: the new science of general semantics. In
Training of officers for the naval service: hearings before the Committee
on Naval Affairs, U. S. Senate, on S. 2304. June 13 and 14, 1946.

46. U. S. SENATE COMMITTEE ON NAVAL AFFAIRS. A scientific evaluation of
the proposal that the War and Navy Departments be merged into a single
Department of National Defense, March 13, 1946. Washington, D. C.: U. S.
Government Printing Office, 1946.

47. WEYL, H. The mathematical way of thinking. Science, 1940, 92,
437-46. (See also H. Weyl in Studies in the history of science. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1941.)

MEYERS, R. The nervous system and general semantics. III. Perceptual response
and the neurology of abstraction. Etc.: A Review of General Semantics,
1949, 6, 169-96.

WIENER, N. Cybernetics. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1948.

1 - Alfred Korzybski died on March 1, 1950, while
doing the final editing of this paper. Miss Charlotte Schuchardt,
his editorial secretary, in a letter made the following statement
regarding the final form of the manuscript: "It should be
stated that he did not complete the final editing of this paper.
The editing which I did after his death was minor, and I am grateful
for the assistance of some members of the Institute staff. Yet
I must assume the responsibility both for the slight editing,
and also, particularly, for not making editorial changes which
he might have made."

2 - On the special uses of hyphens and other printed
symbols as "extensional devices" in this chapter, see
pages 28-29.

4 - Arabic-numbered page references to Korzybski's
Science and Sanity are correct for all editions. References
in Roman numerals are to the third edition; for corresponding
pages in the second edition, subtract five.

8 - Among the documentations of this are (25) and
other works by Dorothy D. Lee; also (44).

9 - The following note was supplied by Miss Schuchardt:
"It may be clarifying to elaborate briefly on some of Korzybski's
views on primitive types of orientation and his use of the term
'primitive,' as I interpret them. It seems to me that he refers
to certain complex socio-cultural, psycho-logico-linguistic, etc.,
levels of development and their attendant orientations found in
different areas in the world. Considering our human class of life
as a whole, we may assume that developments from 'primitive' to
more advanced types of 'pre-scientific,' to 'scientific 1950'
orientations, proceeded in degrees here and there, not linearly
but, rather, 'spirally' in accordance with our understanding of
ourselves and our environments. The developments of one culture
were usually eventually intermingled with and carried along with
transformations by other cultures.

"The reader is referred to (18), in which Korzybski
first formulated his new definition of human beings as a 'time-binding
class of life,' unique in that one generation can (potentially)
begin where the former left off. This process can be handicapped
or stifled in many ways. Korzybski stated in another context that
'The human understanding of time-binding as explained here establishes
the deductive grounds for a full-fledged "science of man,"
where both inductive and deductive methods are utilized.... I
had to include neuro-linguistic and neuro-semantic (evaluational)
environments as environments, and also had to consider geographic,
physico-chemical, economic, political, ecological, socio-cultural,
etc., conditions as factors which mould human personalities, and
so even group behaviour' (23).

"So far the highest orders of abstractions made
by man, and those giving the greatest degree of predictability,
may be observed in mathematical forms of representations (such
as the tensor calculus). To bring to fuller expression the constructive
potentialities of man in his ethical, Socioeconomic, etc., activities,
and so keep pace with the achievements in mathematics, science,
etc., and their technological consequences, was one of the main
aims of Korzybski beginning with Manhood of Humanity in
1921.

"There seems no doubt that some primitive types
of evaluation still survive in the orientations of most people
in present-day Western cultures (and perhaps other cultures also,
of which I feel incompetent to speak), involving dichotomies and
conflicting premises, as in 'science versus religion,'
etc. (23).

"I am aware that there are some who take exception
to the findings of Lévy-Bruhl, Boas, and others. Korzybski,
as far as I know, felt that they conveyed something of value in
the analysis of these problems which still remain problems, and
will continue to be analyzed with different interpretations and
terminologies. — C.S."

11 - From A. N. Whitehead, Process and Reality.
Copyright 1929 by The Macmillan Co., and used with their permission
and that of Mrs. A. N. Whitehead.

12 - By permission of Cambridge University Press
and T. North Whitehead.

13 - Reprinted from The Technology Review,
April, 1941, edited at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

14 - For the significance of the date in small figures,
see pages 191-92.

15 - In this connection see the following from Korzybski's
paper on Time-binding: The General Theory (1926): "In
my independent inquiry I came across difficulties and had to solve
them or quit. My solution is given in the G. T. [General Theory]
and the A. [Anthropometer or Structural Differential]. It is found
that this theory covers the theory of mathematical types invented
by Russell.... I knew about the theory of types long before....
I could not accept the theory of types because it is not
general enough and does not fit in my system; as far as my work
is concerned I had to dismiss it. Scientific method led to a solution
of my difficulties; and perhaps no one was more surprised and
happy than myself when I found that the G. T. covers the theory
of types" (22, second paper, p. 7).

See also Science and Sanity, p. 429: "The
author was pleasantly surprised to find that after his
-system was formulated, this ...
non-el [non-elementalistic] theory covers the theory of mathematical
types and generalizes it" (21). C. S.

16 - By permission of M. Kendig, editor, Papers
from the Second American Congress on General Semantics (Lakeville,
Conn.: Institute of General Semantics, 1943), and of the author.

19 - During the war Dr. Kelley was Chief Consultant
in Clinical Psychology and Assistant Consultant in Psychiatry
to the European Theater of Operations; also Chief Psychiatrist
in charge of the prisoners at Nuremberg.

20 - By permission of M. Kendig, editor, Papers
from the Second American Congress on General Semantics (Lakeville,
Conn.: Institute of General Semantics, 1943), and of the author.

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